Dave's story
by xEmistuckx
Summary: Dave Strider, a normal teenage boy with a terrible memory, is sent to a mental hospital. He meets a group of teenagers, one including Karkat Vantas. After a black notebook reveals the secrets of Sburb and all who lost their memories to it, they have to go back and fix what a certain evil cherub broke. Only then can they defeat Lord English, once and for all. (Possible Davekat)
1. Chapter 1

"And…here. This is your room." A tall man with a white shining face leads you into your new room. It's a light grey lined with slightly-chipped paint and lights fused into the wall. Other than the walls, the room is bright white and burns your eyes. You squint to make out furniture. In the corner is your bed, shining and sterilized. The sheets are thin and are made out of what seems to be shower curtain material. Beside it is a small nightstand and a glass of apple juice. In big letters, the cup is labeled 'DAVE'.

There are brightly colored stuffed dolls in a pile but you make no move to sit on them. With a slight peak of curiosity, you point to them.

"Ah yes, those were property of the last patient. He looked a lot like you." The man, preferably called Doc, examines your face. Warm colored eyes, shades, pale skin. Almost as if you and he were relatives.

Alas, you don't remember any sick siblings. You don't remember a lot of things. Where you used to live, who you lived with, all gone. As if your mind was a vortex. The only memory you have is of just a few hours ago, when the judge deemed you crazy and you were pulled away from a man. Who was this man? He was wearing a hat….and he was standing next to a woman. Was he your mom? No, you aren't sure if you had a mom. You aren't quite sure you even remember what it's like to have a mom. Or even a simple definition of what one is.

"David." Doc pokes your shoulder. You nod as he pushes you gently into the room. When the automatic door closes, you breathe a sigh of relief. That doctor was cold to the touch. You know for a fact that hands aren't cold. The man's hands were warm.

"Hello?" A squeaky voice knocks on your glass door. Adjusting your shades, you press the button and open the door. The boy jumps into your room, only to be hit by the cruel hand of gravity and fall to the floor. He lied there, splattered across the floor. You gasp and head for the emergency beeper, As your fingers grace the bright red surface, a burst of laughter erupts. The blue-pajama-d boy stands up without a scratch.

"I really thought I could fly that time. Oh well." The boy shrugs. "Anyway, my name is John and I can fly!" John points to himself proudly.

"Hi. I'm Dave and I played a game." You mutter.

"What?"

"I played a game. Sburb."

"Me too!" John jumps up in the air for joy. As he starts to talk about something called 'god tier', a small girl in purple struts in. A notebook is held tightly to her chest. Her hair is adorned with a light purple hairband.

"You played Sburb as well?" She looked astonished.

"Yea. I could time travel."

"I had magic wands." She takes out two silver dogwood sticks. "I still like to pretend I have that power." She frowns.

"Rose, where's Jade?" John asks. While you were talking to rose, he snatched your apple juice and was slurping up the last few drops.

"Sleeping. I'm sure she can meet you later…" Rose faulters. She stares at you.

"Dave."

"Yes, of course." Taking John's hand, they lead you out of the cold room and into a common area. One boy strikes you as oddly familiar.

"Karkat?" You two stand in shock. Then Karkat snaps back to reality. His face turns bright red.

"You imbecile! I cannot believe it took you this long to get here! We were going to leave you behind but no, Terezi just HAD to have you here. I bet you forgot about Sburb already!" He yells, "To try and kindle what little memory ashes soaked into the minuscule working part of your thinkpan, I'm going to ask you a question a grub will know."

"Grub?" A tall girl looks up from her book, "Is that Alternian food?"

"Kanaya, I told you. A grub is like an earth bug." Karkat sighs.

"I'm being compared to a bug? I know I have a bad memory but if anyone's a pest, it's Gamzee."

"Who's Gamzee?" John asks.

"I'm not sure. He sounds like a high-off-his-ass moron though."

"Strider, you are actually right for once. Gamzee, my moirail, has as much knowledge as a…" He pauses, "…a magical rainbow." Karkat squeaks as he speaks that last blurb, mocking an overly-sweet girl. You flick his head.

As you get settled in with Karkat, a little girl with cat ears glued to a headband hands you a cup of tea. Like Karkat, she wears a black shirt, One cat ear is colored like a piece of candy.

"Hi…" She stops.

"Dave. Dave, meet Nepeta. Nepeta, meet Dave." Karkat pulls your hands together, shaking the. Nepeta rolls her eyes and scurries away.

"Hey Karkat?" You sip the tea. It's gross but somewhat addicting.

"Yes nookwhiff?"

"Why do you and that girl have candy in your hair?" You gently touch the horn-like protrusions. Karkat pushes you away, quite violently. He tries to hide his blush in his turtleneck.

"Don't touch those." He whispers. You back away, but not as far as to offend him. You know, in this light, his skin is starting to look a little grey.

"Dude, before you transform into whatever the hell you are, can you ask me that question?"

"Hold on." Karkat takes a few deep breaths, Gradually, his skin turns pale white again. "Sure." You return to the position you were originally sitting in. The couch seat was sunk in from where you sat.

"Are you ready?" Karkat's voice gets very soft. He seems almost nervous.

"Yea." You lean in. Why was Karkat acting so secretively?

"Who was—"

"Heeeeeeeey!" A tall girl with blond hair and bright blue mascara juts in between you. "I don't mean to interrupt, oh wait, yes I do. Eridan wanted me to tell you two to GET A ROOM." The girl hisses, a silver skull and bones necklace hangs from her neck, swinging back and forth.

"Vriska, we weren't doing anything like that. First of all. Our relationship is strictly platonic. Secondly, Dave and I were trying to have a conversation."

"Poor you." Vriska laughs. Her necklace smacks you in the face.

"Hey, can you lay off? I'm supposed to be taking a completely useless pop quiz." You push Vriska's chest out of your face. She doesn't bat an eye.

"Uh huh, yeah. Well, I'll leave you two to make out. I'm going to hang out with someone who actually keeps his quadrants to himself." Vriska spins around, giving you a face full of hair.

"What'd be even better would be to keep your chestglobes to yourself!" Karkat screams. A niurse frowns through a glass window embedded in the wall.

"Where were we?" You ask.

"Before anyone else interrupts us, I'll make this quick. Who is Dave Strider?"

"Me." You shrug. Karkat widens his eyes, waiting.

"What about you?" He says slowly.

"Uh..well, I used to be able to time-travel." You shrug. This pulls at the concrete-heavy lips of Vantas. Guess that was the right answer.

"Anything else?"

"No. Sorry dude." I watch all hopefulness drain out of his eyes.

"It's alright. I just expected…more. Like the old you. The one I read about."

"You read about me?" You look around for anyone who could overhear this conversation.

"Yes. If you stop acting like you have the Krusty Krab formula, I can show you the book. Now, follow me." Karkat stands up, stretching his legs. They must have fallen asleep.

"Wait, why is this secret?"

"It's not. You're just making a big deal out of something that isn't."

"Isn't what?" You follow Karkat's footsteps. He opens a creaky wooden door.

"Isn't allowed to be viewed by the others."


	2. Chapter 2

Inside what's probably Karkat's room is a large bed with a fabric blanket, instead of a usual hospital bed. The floor was a light tan wood, much more rustic than previous rooms you've passed. The common room was similar, but looked more like a library than this bedroom. The walls were a shade darker than the floor, with a wood pattern. A bedside table and lamp identical to yours was across the room, next to a beanbag chair.

"Why is your room so nice?" Your neck twists in unnatural ways to take in the overwhelming sight.

"Nice? It's pretty ugly to me. The only reason I got this room was because my hallucinations don't act up when I'm with someone else. This isn't even my room. It's John's. "

"So, John sleeps with you? Dude, that sounds pretty gay to me." You raise your eyebrows.

"Nah, he's straight. Besides, he has a girlfriend."

"Rose?" You ask.

"Vriska." Karkat rolls his eyes.

"Dude, how'd she even get into this hospital? Other than being a total bitch, she seems completely normal." You plop down onto the soft bed. An actual quilt is draped across it.

"I heard she killed someone and afterwards wasn't acting right."

"Ok I'm pretty sure a murderer's not the most normal-acting Joe on the block." You roll your eyes.

"No, like, she started getting really bad headaches and swore she saw figures in her prison cell at night. They tried every medicine, even hypnotizing her, but nothing worked. She just sat in her prison cell and eventually it got so bad she ripped out her own eye."

"Jesus." You whisper. For as long as you could remember, ghosts could never drive you to rip out a fully functional eye.

"I overheard one of the nurses talking to Kankri, the owner of this place. She blamed the eye injury on the warden, but only her cell mate believed her. Porrim even thinks the cell mate told the warden to do it."

"Who was the cell mate?"

"Terezi."

"Oh yea, like I'm going to believe that." You sit up, crossing your arms. Terezi was the best. Not even Karkat could convince you otherwise.

"Dave, Vriska held Terezi up to her cell's window and made her stare into the sun. Vriska blinded Terezi." Karkat sighs. "Vengeance makes people do unpredictable things." He ducks under the bed, pulling out a black scrapbook. It's splattered with multi-colored paint and is big enough that it could kill a cat if it was dropped on one. There are several pictures falling out of it. Karkat grazes the cover with his hand, looking somewhat sullen.

"Who's this?" You bend down, picking up a picture that slipped underneath the bed. There's tape hanging from the edges, and the corner has a sizable rip. The picture itself is covered in more paint. It's a wonder at how thick and crusted this paint is.

In your hands is a picture of two aliens. No, two…friends. Other than the tinted skin and protrusions coming out of their hair, the corpses in the picture look like scene versions of Karkat and Terezi. Down to the slightly jagged teeth. Karkat's face down in a pool of blood, spread around him like a Van Gogh painting. Terezi's next to him, eyes closed and covered in a teal liquid streaming from her eyes and mouth. Her eyes are delicately closed, hair slightly overlapping the contours of her face. If you cover the blood with your finger, it almost looks as if she's sleeping. You almost want to brush the hair off her face and hold her in your arms. Who would hurt her like this? Who would kill your best friend and ex-girlfriend and leave them like this? You would revenge her. Whoever this version of her was, you would make sure her killer received what she deserved. You swore on it.

"Dave? Are you alright?" Karkat leans over, arms suspended in the air. You could tell he was deciding whether or not to comfort you. You honestly didn't even know if you wanted to be comforted yourself.

"Who did this? What fucker killed my girlfriend?" You seethe, bending the paper in your hands. Karkat's frown deepens, eyes sinking. Taking a large breath, Karkat wraps his arms around you, his head resting on your shoulder. You throw the picture, curling yourself up. The paper drops, drifting back and forth. You watch it hit the floor, softly gliding across the wood. You sigh.

"That…that wasn't the real you, was it?"

"No, that was an alternate version of me. Terezi spared us from traveling down that road."

"How?" You take a lungful of air, changing nothing. You can't even properly breathe without thinking about how helpless Terezi looked. Like she didn't even have a chance. You knew her better. She would fight till the end, not stopping for anyone.

Unless.

Unless she loved them.

Terezi might be able to overcome creepy clowns and sopor induced sleep, but the heart was stronger than the mind. If it was you, you doubted if she would even confront you. She was strong, yes, but Terezi was…regretful. It didn't matter what she did, the problems it caused always came to haunt her in the end.

And, if you were correct, dodging those regrets was what lead to her demise.

"Vriska. Vriska led Jack Noir back to our meteor by following her fairy dust." Karkat sighs.

"Vriska?" You back away. "Vriska did this?"

"Look." Karkat opens the scrapbook, pointing to a series of pictures dotted with cerulean paint. "She didn't mean for it to happen that way. Vriska was only trying to help us all. And save herself." Karkat faces the pictures towards himself, flipping through multi-colored memories. Catching his nail on another blue page, he holds it up again. Instead of cerulean, the paint is a mixture of blue and red. The pictures are of John and a dead Vriska. You recall nothing of this event, or even knowing John went God-Tier.

"She still did it." You shake your head, pushing away the pictures.

"And what are you going to do about it? You're getting mad over nothing. That was a different time, something that never even occurred. That Vriska is dead, stuck in the game's grasp."

"I'll kill her. I'll get that girl and show her who she's messing with." You jump up off the bed, grabbing a wooden stick out of a clay pot next to the door. Karkat catches your arm.

"Stop. You don't know what you're getting yourself into."

"I know what I'm doing. I might have forgotten my entire childhood but I won't forget what that girl did. She _killed _her. She killed YOU." You rip your arm away, throwing open the door. Karkat lunges himself at you, dropping the book. His eyes widen.

"That's not the Vriska you're mad at. This Vriska is human. She doesn't know what she did as a troll, and you can't blame her for it. That's like killing you for killing Jade."

"I did wh—"

"Just come back inside and we can talk." Karkat digs his nails into your arm. You flinch.

"We did talk. I don't care if it's the same girl. If she did it once she can do it again. I don't want to risk it." You turn away, hanging your head. "You don't have to look."

"Dave—"

"Karkat."

"I can't let you do this."

"You're on her side?" You gasp.

"No! I'm just trying to ensure everything goes well!"

"What goes well? Terezi's death?"

"I never-"

"You want Terezi to die. That's why you showed me the book."

"Not at a-"

"If you don't want Vriska dead, why am I supposed to listen to you?"

"I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO FINISH THE GAME!" Karkat screams, eyes flaming. You let the stick fall onto the floor, mouth flying open.

"The game?" You whisper. Karkat stutters backwards, hands over his mouth.

"I-I said too much. I have to go." Karkat runs down the hallway, kicking the stick out of the way. You press your arms to your forehead, wondering just how you managed to fuck up so badly. You reach for the doorknob, pulling Karkat's door closed. As you turn to leave, something catches under your foot. Under your shoe is another picture.

It's from on the meteor, a selfie of you, Terezi and Karkat, smiling and acting as goofy as possible. You run after Karkat, leaving the picture to fall to the floor.


End file.
